210 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
can say that I have a little corner of blackberries that has done 
better than anything else on the place. From one-fifth of an acre 
I picked sixty-two crates, which is at the rate of 4,960 quarts per 
acre, but the whole plantation does not do that well, although it has 
the same care. 
The President: You do better with your corner of blackberries 
than Joe Lieter did with his corner in wheat. (Laughter.) There 
is one thing very evident. When we are speaking of those small 
patches that are giving such wonderful yields the man that grows 
those berries has to buy them and pay for them, otherwise he would 
put the rest of his farm into blackberries. But when he comes to 
pay all the expenses he finds there is not very much left to the credit 
of the blackberry patch after all, so he does not enlarge it to four or 
five acres. 
Mr. Latham: The reason Mr. Wright does not enlarge is be- 
cause he has not got the land, but he is about buying another piece 
of land and will now, no doubt, enlarge. 
The President: That is pretty good evidence. 
THE PRACTICAL VALUE OF ORNAMENTATION ABOUT 
THE HOME. 
PROF. W. W. PENDERGAST, HUTCHINSON. 
In order to make this subject presentable at all we must modify 
our ideas of what practical means. We have generally looked upon 
the word practical as belonging to something that is directly or in- 
directly connected with money getting. Now in gold mining, for 
instance, we are at work directly for money, for there is nothing to: 
be done to the pure gold we get out of the mine but to give it the 
proper amount of alloy and then touch it with the stamp of Uncle 
Sam’s mint. In our manufactures and in the products of the soil 
we indirectly get at the money. We raise something we can sell 
for money, but we do not see how we can make use of shrubbery 
around the home for any of those purposes. The seeds are worth 
nothing as food for either man or beast. You might turn in a few 
goats and let them eat the shrubs themselves; they probably would 
do it, but it would not be a paying operation to raise shrubs for the 
goats to eat and sell the goats. So I have put a different meaning 
upon the word, and say that: 
Whatever adds, or, by its proper use, may add to one’s comfort or con- 
venience, or which, in the last analysis, amounts to the same thing,—what- 
ever is of use in increasing the enjoyment of others, has a practical value. 
It may not add material wealth, but will enrich the mind. A fat pocketbook, 
full stomach and fertile acres joined with barren aims, crude ideals and low 
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